50 Years Later, Church Still Adapts to Council

by Francis X. Rocca. VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Fifty years ago this October, Blessed John XXIII and more than 2,500 bishops and heads of religious orders from around the world gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica for the opening session of the Second Vatican Council. Over the following three years, Vatican II would issue 16 major […]

Parish Can’t Pass Opportunity to Be Part of the Super Bowl Action

by Sean Gallagher. INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) – A historic Indianapolis church is in the center of festivities surrounding the Feb. 5 Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium. St. John the Evangelist parish, founded 175 years ago when Indianapolis was a small town on the edge of the American frontier, is in the middle of the […]

Trip Will Be Benedict’s Third to Latin America

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and bishops and Catholics from the region when he visits Mexico and Cuba in late March. He will also greet bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as pray at the shrine of Our Lady […]

Does Groundhog Day Have Christian Roots?

by Anne-Marie Welsh, ERIE, Pa. (CNS) – What could be more charming than a small town in Pennsylvania that throws its doors open to the world for a great big party each year in the deepest, darkest days of winter? How about that it happens in the Diocese of Erie? Or that several members of […]

The Body Politic

If Blessed John Henry Newman is correct that the great defining principle of Catholicism is the Incarnation, the embodiment of God – and we think it is – then it follows that the Church cannot sequester itself from the world of the body politic. We use the word “politic” judiciously – in distinction from “politics.” […]

Diocese Has Strong Presence at March for Life (with slide show)

  by Antonina Zielinska Buses from throughout the diocese brought hundreds of pro-life supporters to the 39th annual March for Life Jan. 23 to join the tens of thousands of demonstrators in Washington D.C. “I came to speak for the children who cannot speak for themselves,” said Michael Cucci, a parishioner of Most Precious Blood parish, […]

Church Loses Conscience Exemption – Pope Outlines Threats to Religious Freedom in U.S.

by Nancy Frazier O’Brien WASHINGTON (CNS) – Although Catholic leaders vowed to fight on, the Obama administration has turned down repeated requests from Catholic bishops, hospitals, schools and charitable organizations to revise its religious exemption to the requirement that all health plans cover contraceptives and sterilization free of charge. Instead, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the […]

Our Lady of Altagracia Honored in Williamsburg (with slide show)

Parishioners of SS. Peter and Paul parish, Williamsburg, gathered at Epiphany Church Jan. 21 and processed to SS. Peter and Paul Church with an icon of Our Lady of Altagracia, patroness of the Dominican Republic.  Msgr. Agripino Nunez Collado, rector of Mother and Teacher Pontifical University in the Dominican Republic, was the main celebrant of the liurgy.  […]

Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Not in the Public Interest

SEATTLE (CNS) – Legislation introduced by lawmakers in Washington state that would redefine marriage to allow same-sex marriage “is not in the public interest,” said the bishops of the state’s three Catholic dioceses. “Marriage in faith and societal traditions is acknowledged as the foundation of civilization. It has long been recognized that the stability of […]